We just bought a chevy chevy race car that will blast us off to the next city at a maximum whopping 80 mph. Next, we are off to Oaxaca where there is supposed to be an abundance of outdoor activities such as backpacking, hiking, fly fishing and more!









What we thought would be a couple days in Guadalajara has turned out to be a 2 week excursion. For the last week we have looked at many cars and finally bought a Chevy Chevy. This car is obviously only made in Mexico. It has four doors and a hatchback, so basically it is a station wagon. Along the frustrating path to finding a car and legalizing it in mexico, we have discovered a few things:



1)Don´t ever get a mexican bank account. If you put too much money in an account they charge you for the priveledge of placing your money there. Up to 10% per withdrawl.

2)You will not be able to withdraw large amounts of money from a mexican bank (I am talking in the thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of pesos unless you have an account with the bank. On top of this they will charge you a fee for withdrawing so much money.

3)If you are going to buy a car in Mexico, make sure you make the person you are buying the car with go with you to the El Transito (Mexico version of the U.S. DOL) to register your car. The person we bought the car with was a taxi driver so he was very familiar with the process. In Mexico, the original bill of sale is the title for the car. The person selling the car must handwrite on the back and sign that they are handing it over. Then, make a copy from an outside printer around the corner of the building, haha.

He didn´t speak any english but we were able to communicate enough in spanish so that he could translate for us and quickly get us through the process of registering the car. He also has been to the states and believe it or not said that our system of registering a car is faster and more efficient. Overall took us about about 1.5 hours and cost about 1000 pesos for tabs and registration.

4)You will need your passport and valid drivers license and a Mexican address to send mail to. The address is not really important just a formality. The address must be verified by a bill sent to the address in the mail. We used our host´s father´s name on a bill for our residence here. If your thinking…but the the resident´s name does not match Michael´s name so how can that be valid…then you are thinking exactly what I thought. But hey! We are in Mexico and it works so we will follow Mexico rules.

5)Make sure you have a reliable mechanic take a look at the car before a long trip…like the one we will be doing tomorrow…a 12 hour drive to Oaxaca. We had some ignition problems and idle problems. We had the mechanic take a quick look and within a half hour of inspections, tuned the car a Little and we were good to go. We will see how reliable the car is in the future. Despite the fact that the previous owner broke the rear window and bent the right rear axel, we think it will last until we get to Argentina!

6)If you need a car for a trip like ours, bring one from the U.S. Not only are the cars more reliable and better made, but if you need to speak with someone about it, i twill all be in english so you understand everything.

7)Having a car with U.S. plates makes it easier to get tourist insurance for other countries. We spent alot of time trying to find temporary insurance for our mexican plated car. Since it has mexican plates we are somewhat considered residents and they only do 1 year plans for residents typically.

8)If you are male, find a nice female insurance agent and meet with them in person. They right of f the bat will tell you that they don´t think they can swing a deal, but in the end we were able to get a 3 week insurance deal for Mexico on our car. Not too shabby. Thank you insurace lady! We appreciate it. Because we had a domestic car, we had to get domestic insurance. The one we happened to go with was Lloyd Car Insurance which is a U.S. based company with offices in Mexico.

9)There is not one car insurance company who will cover you throughout South America as far as our research tells us. Looks like we will either need to forget insurance in some countries or purchase new insurance in every country we visit…some are required to be purchased at the borders.

So, finally we have a car registered in Michael´s name on it(Derek already has a truck registered in his name somewhere in Mexico being driven around by some Mexicans he does not know) but with Mexican plates. Hopefully this will help us fly under the radar. It is that or the police will think that some gringos just stole some mexican´s car! Wish us luck, prayers are welcome!